Damselfly
The image of a damselfly is the main feature of the show's logo, and appears repeatedly in the merch for the show as well as in the show itself. Damselflies are closely related to dragonflies although they are generally smaller and differ slightly in their physiological characteristics. Historically, dragonflies and damselflies have represented both goodness and prosperity (to East Asian and Native American cultures) and evil and injury (to European cultures).Dragonfly - Wikipedia Instances In the first relaxation tape that Hester produces for Oleta in the Institute, she includes a visualisation exercise where Oleta is inside the mind of a winged insect being captured by a child. Through the insect's compound eyes, she sees the forest, and then the child, iterated many times. The girl traps the damselfly and studies it while it struggles. On a branch above them, a bird watches and waits. The girl tears the insect's wings off, and the damselfly sees part of its own body for the first time. The girl does not regret her actions, and blows the wings into the wind like a kiss. She puts the damselfly down on a rock, and it stays immobile while she skips away a bird lands beside it. The insect starts to crawl away, and the bird swiftly swallows it.Season 1, Cassette #1: Stress, Shoulders Although less explicit, a device in Oleta's body that regulates her memory is likened to an insect. It "lived" in a "cave" between her left rib and left hip, and glittered like starlight. It had many extremely long legs that usually curled beneath it, and fluttering wings. It collected "photos and charms and cigarette butts, floral scents and faces and feelings."Season 1, Cassette #4: Sadness, Lungs Claudia Atieno's painting "Child and Damselfly" was featured in the opening exhibit of the Karikari Contemporary Gallery in 1969. It had previously been owned by Aimee Layeni. The painting (pictured opposite) featured a young Claudia playing with a damselfly she had caught. In Roimata Mangakāhia's audio guide to the exhibit, she suggested that the lake in the background was Lake Victoria in eastern Africa, near where Atieno was born, and that the child was Atieno herself. Some critics had disputed this since the name of the piece was "Child and Damselfly" and not "The Artist as a Child and Damselfly" but Roimata believed the resemblance to Claudia was too strong to ignore. The child is holding the damselfly firmly, with great interest. She is critical - she loves it for what it is, but also wants to know more about it. Roimata asks the listener if they have ever been held and seen like this. She points out two shadows along the right hand side of the painting, which she says are two humans, presumably the child's parents, out of view.Season 2, Cassette #0: Karikari Contemporary (1969) Roimata recounted in 1977 that Claudia had once told her she used to capture moths and flies around her Programming Centre. She would look at them closely, studying their complex eyes and hairy twitching legs. She wouldn’t kill the damselflies, but she would tear their wings from them and set them back down, watching them crawl away. She would hold the wings like a microscopic stained glass window up to the sun and then blow them out to the wind, as if they were seed pods that could land upon a spot of fertile earth and grow again. Roimata asked her why children did such mean things, but Claudia said she didn't think it was mean at all, and in fact she still did it occasionally.Season 2, Cassette #5: Van Gogh Museum (1977) One of Roimata's early artworks, placed tentatively between 1953 and 1958, was a charcoal drawing of a damselfly. Hester commented that while they were prevelant in her sketches, she had never seen Roimata put one in a fully realised painting. She also speculated that the abundance of damselflies in Roimata's work and the abundance of damselflies in Claudia's work was strongly connected.Season 2, Cassette #10: Karikari Contemporary Gallery (1986) On March 24, 1954, Michael Witten got drunk in his office and left dictaphone notes to his secretary Amy. At some point during the night, he noticed a winged bug flying around the office. He described it as carved jade sitting atop a bronze staff, only with wings. The wings and its body were long and thin. He said it was beautiful, but it kept dive-bombing his face.Season 3, Reel #6: March 24, 1954 When Michael was turned on and used as a scapegoat by Vishwathi Ramadoss, he described her accusations as emotionless and merciless, "like a child with a bug." Rather than vindictive, she seemed to just be curious about how and how much she could hurt him. He described her plucking off his wings and legs, setting him on fire with a magnifying glass just to see what happened, and then leaving him to die in the dirt when she got bored.Season 3, Reel #7: March 29, 1954 References Category:Motifs